The Sacrifice of Isaac

Isaac was born to Abraham at a very old age. Abraham was 100 years old at his birth while his wife Sarah was just a young 90 years old. Isaac was the child that God had promised Abraham 25 years beforehand when he called him to leave the land of Ur and to go to a place that he would be shown. God promised to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation and they would possess a tremendous amount of land.

Abraham’s positive response to God by picking up everything and going to a place he had never been didn’t mean that there weren’t bumps along the way. After about ten years of waiting on the Lord, Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands. Sarah gave her maidservant Hagar to Abraham to conceive a child for her and Ishmael was born when Abraham was 86 years old.

Another 13 years pass and God speaks to Abraham and essentially tells him that the time has arrived for Him to begin fulfilling the covenant. While I believe most people would understand considering the circumstances, Abraham had jumped the gun by 14 years. Even though Ishmael is not the son that God had promised, God promises to make him into a great nation as well. But Isaac would be the son of promise and the covenant that God had made to Abraham would be fulfilled through him and not Ishmael.

This sets the stage for Genesis 22 where God speaks to Abraham and asks for a sacrifice to be made. God doesn’t ask for just any sacrifice but he asks that Abraham sacrifice his only son. There is an obvious parallel here between the sacrifice of Isaac and God sacrificing His only Son. One can imagine the great difficulty Abraham must have had when he was asked to give up his only son. But God the Father must have had the same difficulty in giving up His only Son.

One might try to argue that God knew what would happen to Jesus and the decision to sacrifice His Son was easier for this reason. There was obviously no faith required on God’s part. But this also meant that God sent His Son into the world knowing exactly what Jesus would endure in life and in death.

While Abraham was certainly ready to sacrifice his son, he also expected to receive him back from the dead. Abraham’s faith had grown since the time that he and Sarah had taken matters into their own hands and Ishmael was born. Abraham knew that God’s promise was fulfilled through Isaac and that even if Isaac was sacrificed he couldn’t remain dead because there was a covenant between him and God.

Hebrews 11:17-19 tells of Abraham’s faith:

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Abraham is told to go to the region of Moriah and he will make an offering on a mountain that God will show him. As one may expect, this area is not a random selection by God but rather a very important place. Mt. Moriah is one of several mounts that make up, or rather will make up after Abraham’s time, the city of Jerusalem. So Abraham is instructed to travel to the site where Jerusalem will be in order to make the sacrifice.

But there is more significance than this. Mt. Moriah is also where Solomon’s temple will be located and the sacrifices for sin would be performed. It will be the location of the holy of holies, the most sacred part of the temple where the Ark of the Covenant resides and the presence of God Himself will be.

Through no coincidence I am sure, Mt. Moriah is also likely to be the place that Jesus hung on the cross. You might wonder how that could possibly be if the temple was there but there are two very easy ways that this could be the case. The first is that Solomon’s temple was destroyed. Where Herod’s temple was built centuries later was not necessarily the exact same spot where Solomon’s temple had been. The other easy explanation would be that while the temple was big, so are mountains and the temple and the spot of the crucifixion could have been on the same mount. Realistically though, it is more likely that Herod’s temple was not in the same location as Solomon’s.

When the time comes for the sacrifice Isaac asks where the lamb for the sacrifice was. I can only imagine that Abraham had to look away with tears in his eyes when he told his son that God would provide the sacrifice. Of course Abraham is prevented from actually sacrificing his son and God provides a ram to sacrifice in place of Isaac.

If Mt. Moriah is where Jesus would also hang on the cross, then Genesis 22:14 provides a bit of prophetic foreshadowing. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Quite literally on that mountain it was provided, Jesus being the once for all sacrifice. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son as an offering to God but instead a ram was provided as a substitute. While Solomon’s temple stood on Mt. Moriah sacrifices were made year after year as an atonement for sin, in order to cover up the sins of the people. And then finally Jesus was provided as the once for all sacrifice for sin. No more sacrifices were needed. The blood of Jesus didn’t just cover up sin like the previous sacrifices did. Instead it washed it away completely. God provided it all on Mt. Moriah.